How wasted spend is counted

Google Ads

The Waste Calculator adds together five amounts:

1. Spend on campaigns with no conversions.
2. Spend on search terms that had a fair chance to convert and didn't, by the rule below.
3. Half the spend on keywords with a Quality Score of 5 or less.
4. 30% of mobile spend, when mobile has spent more than 100 and under 1% of mobile clicks convert.
5. Spend from 1:00am to 5:59am (account time) in the hours that brought no conversions.

Each line of the breakdown is the amount the total counts, so the Quality Score line is the half, shown with the spend it is half of. The amounts overlap (a campaign with no conversions also has search terms with none), so the total is capped at 80% of spend. When the cap applies, the overlap it removes is a line of its own, and the lines always add up to the total. We estimate that 70% of the total can be recovered.

When a search term counts as wasted. A term with two clicks and no conversion hasn't had a chance to convert, so telling you to block it would be advice with no information in it. A search term counts as wasted only when it has no conversions and both of these are true:

• It has cost at least what an average conversion costs you: the account's total spend divided by its total conversions for the audit period.
• It has had at least twice the clicks a conversion usually takes: two divided by the account's conversion rate (conversions per click), and never fewer than 8 clicks.

When the account has no conversions in the period there is no rate to work from, so the bar is 20 clicks, with no cost condition. Only terms past the bar are counted as waste or put on the list of suggested negative keywords; the Search Term Audit in the Deep Dive lists the rest as not judged yet. It is the same test the Amazon PPC audit applies, with conversions in place of orders.

The Wasted Spend section in the Deep Dive counts more narrowly: campaigns with no conversions, search terms past the same bar, and 40% of mobile spend when mobile converts at under 30% of the desktop rate. Its score falls by 2 points for every percent of spend it counts as wasted.

Meta Ads

Coming soon. Meta Ads audits open once Meta approves AuditRoger's app. This is how their waste will be counted.

A campaign that spent $50 or more with no conversions is flagged, and so is the account as a whole. Below $50, no conversions usually means the campaign has barely run.

Amazon PPC

A search counts as wasted when it has no orders after enough clicks that you'd expect two (at least 8), and it has cost more than your average cost per order.

When the figure overstates it

• Conversion tracking is missing or broken. With nothing being counted, everything looks wasted. Fix tracking first; the audit checks it.
• Campaigns aren't meant to convert. Brand awareness and video campaigns have other goals.
• Sales happen offline or later. Phone calls and long sales cycles that aren't imported as conversions look like waste.